a little lime

Back to school, back to work, one of my kids moved back home (and, yes, another redistribution of the stuff in my craft room - henceforth to be known as ben's room......again.....lol). One thing I did manage to get done last week was some sketching for a project. Here's a couple of my favourites - they're just outlines with no detail work: Ha......just noticed my spelling of leaf on this one - ah, well, I can't be bothered opening photoshop to edit it - it will just have to stay as leavf! Love poppy pods. LOVE. THEM. We have been having stunning, mild Winter weather though it is meant to get colder as the week goes on. I did my order for Spring/Summer seeds yesterday - can't wait to get planting them in just one more month! I love this time of year - the anticipation of Spring - the bulbs are pushing up in the garden, my house is full of Jonquils - the daffodils are beginning to flower. Wonderful! hx

I followed a link last week posted by tanglebucket on facebook and ended up in Johanna Basford's gallery . Gorgeous, gorgeous work. I fell in love with her "crazy botanic" piece - it was the source of inspiration for this: Mine features lilies and daisies (love drawing both of these - particularly the loopy lily leaves) along with a heap of other stuff. Really enjoyed drawing this and will probably do some more along this theme. I am still contemplating whether to add some darker areas or shading. But, I do like the feel of it as is. I hate going that step too far, and my usual motto is when in doubt, don't do it! We'll see. Maybe I'll take a copy and play with it. School starts back for me today (where, oh where did the 4 weeks go?). Today the kids will be making pumpkin soup and apple oatmeal muffins (perfect weather for it - it is very cold). We had a heap of snow on the nearby mountain Saturday night - so we drove up to take Erin tobogganing Su...

Do you see pictures in your coffee? Or like everywhere? It's normal right? Well, anyway, I've decided I don't really need to worry until they start talking to me, too! So, this week, after pulling my espresso shot for my morning latte I spotted a daisy with swirls around it in the crema - then I took a photo so I could draw it later - as you do. At one stage, just after the initial line work, I really wasn't loving it - it felt unbalanced, but once I played around and added some detail and more elements, I'm happy with the end result and am glad I persisted. Definitely a fun experiment. Hope your weekend is going great! hx

The school holidays.......so, so great. Too bad I've only got one more week to go. I've managed to make lots of cheese, draw a little, watch the entire cycle 8 of Britain and Ireland's next top model, take photos of coffee, the farm, the animals and catch up on a bit of extra sleep. So good! Once upon a time.....I used to paint.........a lot, back in the dark ages. A few weeks ago I pulled out my paints again intending to do something with them, and, you know what? It was just sooooooo messy. Add that to having to go up and down stairs for clean up and I just couldn't really be bothered. Back into the cupboard they went. So, when I sketched out a daisy/gerbera-ish flower the other day I was tempted to go for watercolour or maybe acrylics and actually paint it but fear of the mess factor overcame me and I decided to play with my markers to see if I could create similar effects to those I used to get with acrylics or oils. I'm happy enough with how it tur...

For this picture, I used the same design framework as my previous drawing  "pods"  but have replaced the oval pods with tulips - as they fill out much the same shape. The design retains its balance, but has a different feel. I took a bit more time with the perspective on this one and am happier with the end result. Love tulips. Though they're too fussy for me to grow here - our winters are not cold enough to keep them in the ground and I can't be bothered digging them up year after year! Hope your weekend is fabulous! hx

I love the school holidays, I love that we're having mild, sunny winter weather and I love pods. Yep, pods. I haven't drawn them for a while and I think I had kinda forgotten about them. If you want to check out some of my previous pod drawings go: here and here What prompted a renewal of the pod romance? This pin  of an amazing drawing by Irina Vinnik - I love how her pods had a calyx attached to them and right away wanted to have a play with this idea. I really like the flow of this one and may re-do something similar with flowers. I was a little slap-happy with the drawing and the perspective is out of whack here and there. If you want to see a couple of in progress images of outline and shading they are on my facebook page Hope you're having a great week! hx